2024 Solar Eclipse in Texas

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T

Tanzipoo

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Joined
May 7, 2021
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Location
Rockledge, FL
After enjoying fifth wheel and small trailer pulled by Jeep, we've finally invested in 40' Newmar toy hauler. The toys we haul? 6 small dogs. Garage is great place for sleeping and eating, and keeping all of them away from visitors for a while. We live in Florida on the Space Coast & get to watch, hear and sometimes feel all of the launches. For 2017 solar eclipse, we rented a Class C and stayed couple nights in an alfalfa field in Idaho - far cheaper than RV parks and hotels. How/where do we search for similar places in Texas for 2024 eclipse in path of totality?
 
It is still a little early for the pop up eclipse RV camping spots to start showing up, for those I would suggest checking back at 18-24 months before the eclipse.

Having said that if you want an off grid dry camping spot or state park like setting, there are a few I have considered. First off the path of this eclipse is a LOT wider than the last one meaning it is much less important to be right at the center line. The path also goes through several major cities including the entire DFW metro plex.

Now down to sites I have under consideration in no particular order:

1, Lady Bird Johnson park RV campground in Fredericksburg, TX. This is a city park with a full hookup RV campground, spacing is somewhat tight between the RV's and the older part of the campground has a lot of oak trees, however I strongly suspect there will be organized observing going on somewhere in this large park.

2, There is a dry camping only commercial RV park / ranch between Fredericksburg and Llano also near center line of the eclipse, Oxford Ranch Campground, we stopped in there on a day drive while in the hill country a couple of years ago, office was closed, signs on the door sounded less than welcoming, though that may be a false impression. (very close to center line)

3, Garner state park, the most popular state park in Texas, and is is withing a fraction of a mile of the center line (good luck getting a site, in normal times it is hard to get reservations there in the busy season)

4, Llano city RV park, in small city part on a small dammed up river / lake, can't comment never been to the park, but have been to Llano a couple of times, (home of Coopers BBQ original location (now a chain) considered by many to be the best BBQ in Texas)

5, The centerline crosses Lake Buchanan where there are a number of RV parks, as well as a couple of public RV campground (COE?)

going north there are any number of other commercial RV parks, and a few public ones along the path.
 
Damn, I just looked at that map. The house we sold last year is dead center on the path of totality. Could have just gone home. Looks like I'll be able to park in my kids driveway with similar results, though.
 
SeilerBird said:
Dallas will be close to the center so will Austin.
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You are right - Dallas is perfect place and we have friends in Arlington - but their yard won't take our 40'. We drove it to Arlington in December and hit DFW area on a Friday evening. Huge mistake! After our 2017 experience with the eclipse, we want to stay away from the very populated and high-traffic places like DFW. Their population will likely more than double during the week of the 2024 eclipse. It seems awfully early to be thinking about this, but interested folks all over the WORLD are already planning for it. In Idaho in 2017, we parked in an alfalfa field with folks from Alaska, California, Norway, Sweden, etc.


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Isaac-1 said:
It is still a little early for the pop up eclipse RV camping spots to start showing up, for those I would suggest checking back at 18-24 months before the eclipse.

Having said that if you want an off grid dry camping spot or state park like setting, there are a few I have considered. First off the path of this eclipse is a LOT wider than the last one meaning it is much less important to be right at the center line. The path also goes through several major cities including the entire DFW metro plex.

Now down to sites I have under consideration in no particular order:

1, Lady Bird Johnson park RV campground in Fredericksburg, TX. This is a city park with a full hookup RV campground, spacing is somewhat tight between the RV's and the older part of the campground has a lot of oak trees, however I strongly suspect there will be organized observing going on somewhere in this large park.

2, There is a dry camping only commercial RV park / ranch between Fredericksburg and Llano also near center line of the eclipse, Oxford Ranch Campground, we stopped in there on a day drive while in the hill country a couple of years ago, office was closed, signs on the door sounded less than welcoming, though that may be a false impression. (very close to center line)

3, Garner state park, the most popular state park in Texas, and is is withing a fraction of a mile of the center line (good luck getting a site, in normal times it is hard to get reservations there in the busy season)

4, Llano city RV park, in small city part on a small dammed up river / lake, can't comment never been to the park, but have been to Llano a couple of times, (home of Coopers BBQ original location (now a chain) considered by many to be the best BBQ in Texas)

5, The centerline crosses Lake Buchanan where there are a number of RV parks, as well as a couple of public RV campground (COE?)

going north there are any number of other commercial RV parks, and a few public ones along the path.
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Thanks. Haven't looked yet at Lady Bird Johnson in Fredericksburg, but have spoken with a KOA there. Of their 80 available sites, 74 are already booked for 2024! They can book site with a deposit, but won't give a rate yet. They are waiting to see what all others around there are doing. They'll likely be anywhere from 4 - 10 X the typical amount. That's what we found in 2017.
 
For the last eclipse I almost waited too late to book a site, as I had to wait to see if my wife could get vacation days scheduled for that time. (vacation days are scheduled for the year in January each year). So I ended up looking for a site between the Mississippi river and Grand Tetons NP, after about 8-9 hours online scouring obscure sources, and looking for any RV campgrounds along the cetnerline path using google maps I was able to snag a site at a hunting camp outside Douglas, WY which had about a dozen RV sites (8 full hookups, 4 electric only, we had an electric only). During the last eclipse many state and public parks with RV sites altered there normal reservation windows going from 6 months to 12-18 months out for that week so the people that assumed 180 booking window found out too late that all the sites were booked up for that week months earlier.
 
I was in Colorado for the last eclipse, and at the last minute decided to go up to Cheyenne, WY and experience it. Got there the day before and there were lots of farmers renting out fields for RV parking. I continued about 10 miles west of town along the centerline and found a free boondocking spot in a county park that had opened their gates to overnight camping. I set up camp adjacent (but not too close) to the local astronomy club who had set up a large solar observation telescope.

I wound up staying there the night after the eclipse, too as news reports were filled with stories about the Interstate to Denver being basically a parking lot clogged with bumper to bumper traffic the whole way.

The 2024 eclipse path will go from southwest to northeast through several major metro areas. The longest duration of totality will be as it crosses the Rio Grande from Mexico into the US. I doubt there will be any problem finding a place to pull over for a while in that area.

There's also going to be a "Ring of Fire" or annular eclipse on October 14, 2023 going northwest to southeast across Oregon, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and catching corners of CA, AZ and Colorado.

National Eclipse
 
Isaac-1 said:
For the last eclipse I almost waited too late to book a site, as I had to wait to see if my wife could get vacation days scheduled for that time. (vacation days are scheduled for the year in January each year). So I ended up looking for a site between the Mississippi river and Grand Tetons NP, after about 8-9 hours online scouring obscure sources, and looking for any RV campgrounds along the cetnerline path using google maps I was able to snag a site at a hunting camp outside Douglas, WY which had about a dozen RV sites (8 full hookups, 4 electric only, we had an electric only). During the last eclipse many state and public parks with RV sites altered there normal reservation windows going from 6 months to 12-18 months out for that week so the people that assumed 180 booking window found out too late that all the sites were booked up for that week months earlier.
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For the last one, we started trying to book in January for August eclipse. Way too late. That's why we are getting a jump on it early this time. We ended up in an alfalfa patch cleaned out for RV's and tents, but it was tough finding one. However, seeing the totality was absolutely amazing! Looking online now, the interest is already building up.
 
We are planning on finding a boondock site someplace in south Texas as close to the centerline as possible. During the last eclipse we found a remote FS campsite 30 minutes or more outside of Boise, high in the mountains. It was as close to the centerline as possible, and it was amazing! We had a 30’ TT at the time, and we barely fit in the site (or on the dirt roads to get to it). I figure we will have a much easier time of finding a place in Texas for the motorhome.
 
My home was in the full eclipse path several years in Oregon and had family & co-workers camp at our place. I thought the excitement was overblown until I saw it first hand - it was awe inspiring. We had hoards of people commute near my town - the region was a parking lot for many hours afterward with people trying to get home.
 
Loose Nut said:
Wow, some folks really like to book sites far in advance... the world could end before that eclipse occurs, lol. Oh, well, kudos to those folks for being so well-organized. Somebody has to do it... I'm still living day to day.
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I booked my reservation two years ago at a friend's house who happens to be living on the center line in Sulphur Springs Texas.
 
Greetings,

Might I suggest another way to find a spot. Look at the map of totality and the cities that it goes near or through. Contact local astronomy clubs and ask them if they can assist in finding a spot for you to camp in your RV.

An alternative, drive there two years in advance and find farmers and ranchers that are along the path and try to find a spot that way. It might be a cheaper way to camp before people start to price gouge for places to stay. I came out real well on the 2017 and got some great shots.
 
One other thing, you want to be there several days before the eclipse and stay a few days after to avoid the traffic. Don't be caught up in the traffic mess by driving the day of the eclipse and the day after as it will be busy.
 
That's how I would do it... I hate running with the thundering herd, or sitting in a 'parking lot' on the interstate. I won't even get started on "running" the 405 during rush hour... one old hand described that stop-and-go traffic as "accordion traffic"---which I thought was hilarious. Lawrence Welk would've approved, lol. ;)
 
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We've been lucky and will view the eclipse from our home in Southern Illinois just as we did the last one.
 
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